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Talented artist here :-) I think there's definitely a market for helping artists get discovered, especially as more and more of them tend to operate online fro

Talented artist here :-) I think there's definitely a market for helping artists get discovered, especially as more and more of them tend to operate online from their bedrooms instead of going on tour. So kudos for trying to help them along on that front. From the other comments here, it looks like the $20 goes to the "feedback", and not the promotion to labels. From an artist's point of view, this seems backwards. Personally I can't see why I would pay $20 just for feedback on a recording. If it's a demo recording, then there will be lots of things about it that could be improved, but I will already know this. If it's a professional recording from an album I've done, then it's sort of too late for feedback on it to do much for me. I suppose I could take it into consideration going forward, but my ability to act on this information still seems pretty minimal. So it's not clear why the "feedback" would be worth my $20, especially since there are lots of free ways out there to get feedback on your music. "Submit your music for free, and if we like it we'll contact you about paying to have it promoted (and maybe give you some feedback)" is a model that would make more sense from my POV as an artist. That said, I know it's not the easiest model from your POV, as you'd be inundated with YouTube acoustic guitar covers. So my advice would be to work on making it clear why the $20 will be well spent. I'd be more likely to pay up if I knew how likely I was to be "liked" by you, how likely I would be to get in touch with record companies if this were to happen, and exactly what benefit I could get from your feedback if I wasn't selected. This might something that gets easier once reputational effects start to play in. Hope that's helpful! P.S. My band, in case any one feels the need to investigate my boasting: http://doctorsquid.bandcamp.com/track/on-my-way http://doctorsquid.bandcamp.com/track/on-my-way

schlichtm 14y ago
Super helpful! (powrtoch, add me on Facebook, I'd love to chat more > http://facebook.com/mattfs http://facebook.com/mattfs) Here's what we're thinking: - If your music isn't good enough to go viral yet then we can provide you with feedback on how to improve and reach that point. - If your music IS good enough to go viral the we want to promote you, get you press, get you featured on YouTube, Ustream, etc (these are all things we can do very easily if your music is good - we already have these relationships). - If you are really taking off we can help you monetize this growth in very interesting and artist/fan friendly ways. When you reach this stage we will enter into a production style agreement and take a % of the revenue we generate you. This is where we make our money and NOT on the original $20. Concerns: - If we don't charge we will be bombarded, like you pointed out, with low quality content. This is a problem we want to avoid. - If we don't charge then we will be paying artists to review your content out of our own pocket. Question: What would this site have to say so that when you saw it, as a musician, your reaction was "Holy shit I have to do this and would be stupid not to"?
- abeh 14y ago
  If I was an artist considering this, I would want to see a video of the reviewing artist as they listened to my song. I would want to see their facial expression, and see that the reviewer seems like they know what they are talking about. Also, if I could listen to the music of the reviewing artist, I could judge if the review has any merit.
  - schlichtm 14y ago
    Noted.
- flipside 14y ago
  Can you provide more detail on your feedback model? Are you crowdsourcing feedback? How many people are spending how much time/effort per song? What criteria are songs judged on and how complete is the feedback? What is the minimum amount of feedback artists can expect? Basically, make it clear what the $20 is buying. If you would like to talk more about any of these things, feel free to email me (listed on my info page), crowdsourced ratings are kinda my thing.

schlichtm 14y ago

Super helpful! (powrtoch, add me on Facebook, I'd love to chat more > http://facebook.com/mattfs http://facebook.com/mattfs) Here's what we're thinking: - If your music isn't good enough to go viral yet then we can provide you with feedback on how to improve and reach that point. - If your music IS good enough to go viral the we want to promote you, get you press, get you featured on YouTube, Ustream, etc (these are all things we can do very easily if your music is good - we already have these relationships). - If you are really taking off we can help you monetize this growth in very interesting and artist/fan friendly ways. When you reach this stage we will enter into a production style agreement and take a % of the revenue we generate you. This is where we make our money and NOT on the original $20. Concerns: - If we don't charge we will be bombarded, like you pointed out, with low quality content. This is a problem we want to avoid. - If we don't charge then we will be paying artists to review your content out of our own pocket. Question: What would this site have to say so that when you saw it, as a musician, your reaction was "Holy shit I have to do this and would be stupid not to"?

abeh 14y ago
If I was an artist considering this, I would want to see a video of the reviewing artist as they listened to my song. I would want to see their facial expression, and see that the reviewer seems like they know what they are talking about. Also, if I could listen to the music of the reviewing artist, I could judge if the review has any merit.
- schlichtm 14y ago
  Noted.
flipside 14y ago
Can you provide more detail on your feedback model? Are you crowdsourcing feedback? How many people are spending how much time/effort per song? What criteria are songs judged on and how complete is the feedback? What is the minimum amount of feedback artists can expect? Basically, make it clear what the $20 is buying. If you would like to talk more about any of these things, feel free to email me (listed on my info page), crowdsourced ratings are kinda my thing.